The Justiciar
by Karellian
Summary: It was suppose to be a simple operation. Talos worshipers had believed they found refuge in the ratway. It was suppose to be a simple operation. But how could so much go wrong? \ The only thing she had ever dreamed of was escaping Ivarstead. The city and the wide world was suppose to lead her path to freedom. But the world has its dangers.
1. Chapter 1

Rulindil lay alone bleeding in the sewage and the mildew and the darkness and the stink.

Four thieves lay dead beside him, their entrails sliced open and oozing into the concrete floor. It made no difference in the smell, not in this already putrid sewer.

Rulindil had been lucky. He had seen his life before his eyes. He had seen the last thief with his sword raised, had seen the momentum of the weapon, had known there was no way to dodge it. But the thief, in his moment of pride and glory had slipped and fell from the slime under his feet.

Rulindil did not let him rise. He had dragged his weakened body onto the lowlife, struggled and rolled with him, tarnished his robes in the filth and the gore, and had plunged his dagger deep into the vagrant's side.

Then he twisted and tore, and the organs and the blood and the bile came pouring out.

Then Rulindil watched as the man' skin grew pale, and his eyes became unfocused and distant. Then his limbs began to spasm and jerk, his leg twitching violently; kicking against the stonework. Then he died; his corpse twisted and contorted, his face froze in agony.

Rulindil pulled himself up against the dank wall. He was still hyperventilating from the struggle, his lungs breathing in the vile air. He coughed three times and then vomited.

This was an operating that had gone bad. He was alive but two of his soldiers were dead. They had been ambushed in the long dark tunnels of the ratway, and his guards had been cut down where the stood. They had been left unceremoniously to rot where they fell; in the confusion and the panic and the terror, he had no choice.

Rulindil would return in force for the bodies later. He would make sure his comrades were given the proper rites, and were interned with their ancestors in Alinor. All Altmer deserved this at least. No Altmer deserved to be left in a place like this; not in this sewer.

But first Rulindil would have to escape.

He lifted his hand, and focused in it a small ball of magic. He clutched between his fingers the most brilliant white light which grew and expanded and lit up the darkness like the sun lighting up the world. Then he released his grasp and the magic left his hand a swirled in wide arcs about his body. He could feel it closing his wounds and restoring his limbs to vigor. His body was healed, but his magic will was depleted.

He felt his way through the dark tunnels, and soon emerge at the entrance into Riften. He stepped out into the open air. The noon sun shinned down from the slums above, lighting his face, and warming his skin. His weakened body stumbled a few steps and then fell over into the water. He floated there smiling in the harbour beneath the city. The cool water held him buoyant and quietly laughing as a sudden wave of relief swept over him, chasing the horror and the tension from his stiffened limbs.

He had escaped his ordeal but he was not safe yet. He still wore the dark black robes of a Thalmor Justiciar, and this city was loyal the Ulfric. If he was found in his vulnerable condition, then surely the stormcloack dogs would rip him to shreds.

Rulindil lifted his hand and pulled himself out of the water and into the loose construction surrounding the harbour. Slowly and silently he crawled through the boards and the planks and beams, like a skeever in his den, fleeing the wolf.

Then when he was almost directly beneath the open marketplace, he lay back and let himself rest. Through loose beams he could hear and see the activity above. For the long hours it took to recover his strength, it was these distractions from the market which kept his mourning mind from the pain in his chest, and the happy memories of comrades lost forever.


	2. Chapter 2

"Stay close to me Fastred," Jofthor said as they wandered through the Riften marketplace. The sun was beginning to make its descent over the western horizon, and he was eager to begin the long journey home. He didn't want to be caught outside when night fell.

"But Dad, I want to see more of the city," Fastred said. "There are so many shops, and so many people, and so many things to see and do. Not like stupid, boring old Ivarstead."

"That's all fine," her father responded, a sudden and unintentional scowl forming across his face. "But I don't think either one of us wants to be caught exposed in the Rift after dark, so don't wander off like last time, and make me look for you again!"

Fastred grinned. "If you don't want to be outside, we could rent a room," she offered, her tone clearly hopeful.

Jofthor scoffed; but the thought of such a thing had caused his hand to instinctively clutch the coin purse hidden inside his jacket. He had come to Riften with one goal, and one goal only, and that was to sell his produce in the market; then return home.

Discretely he moved his fingers thought the pouch, and tried as best as he could to count out each coin and to make sure it was all still there. It was all there of course; he had never allowed himself to take his focus away even for a second.

From the moment he had sold the surplus from his farm, he had had kept one eye securely on his money, and the twitching grasp of his hand securely around the hilt of his axe. Even the boldest of thieves would have been smart enough to stay clear of his way; and to pursue weaker pray rather than this rough faced, muscled and aggressive looking farmer from the country.

It was more than just paranoia that clawed at Jofthor. Riften was a rotten city, rotten to its very core, and crawling in every corner with thieves. But these were timid thieves, and like all profiteering vagrants, their eyes were on prey with greater returns, and fewer risks. They hungered for fat merchants, and haughty nobles, not this 'salt of the earth,' type clutching fearfully to his meager earnings.

Fastred was still looking up to her father, still waiting patiently for his respond about staying for the night. He knew he would have to answer her.

He wrapped his hand around her wrist, and pulled her close to himself, and then he whispered forcefully and panicked into her ear.

"This city is a den of pickpockets and thieves," he said, trying to convince her purely through the weight of seriousness in his tone. "They crawl out of the sewer at night and rob people of everything. The money I have on me right now is all the money I will have all year. If I lose it, we're ruined!"

Fastred pulled away from her father, and despite a nervous trepidation, tried to downplay his concerns.

"Thieves crawling out of the sewers at night?" Fastred responded, her right eyebrow raised and questioning. "And yet you're the one who chide me for believing in silly fairy tales."

But then the pleading look in her father's eye broke Fastred's nerve, and she knew this was not a battle she would win.

For a moment she closed her eyes, and silently mouthed a mournful goodbye to the excitement of Riften. Then she quietly relented to her father's wishes, and accepted they must leave.

She had begged and pleaded for three days for her father to take her with him to the market in Riften. He had resisted at first, but eventually even his defenses had been worn down by her insistence. Now it seemed like all that effort had been lost, and that her hopes were now dashed as though they had been dashed on rocks jutting from the surf.

Fastred had dreamed of novelty, any kind of novelty to ease the relentless tedium of her farm girl life. Jofthor had finally given in to her, and she had been overjoyed, but now it seemed like it had all been for nothing. She had had only a sniff, only a taste, only a wetting of the lips; no satisfaction.

She had made her first big trip to the city, and all she had done was spend an hour at the market stalls bidding up the price of farm goods. It was not the adventure she had hoped for.

"I know you think the only good people in the world all live in Ivarstead," Fastred said as she turned with her father and they began to leave the city together. "But you're wrong. I'll prove that to you one day. One day I will make my way in the big city and then you will see that there is more to life than just that sleepy little village."

"That day is not today," Jofthor said, leading his daughter on towards the gate. "You're still my daughter, and you must still be obedient to my wishes."

Then simultaneously they both paused.

Prostrate in front of them, nearly invisible in her frailty lay a young woman, her hands stretching out to them. Her face was covered in dirt, and her frame was thin with the penalty of hunger. She may have been pretty once, but now that was gone.

"I ask only for a septim. Is that so much, only one septim?" she said. Her eyes and her gaze were hollow, devoid of any vigor of life; a pale inflection of a life withering on the vine.

Jofthor's fingers tightened around the handle of his axe. He could feel the eyes of the cities scoundrels and bandits watching him, gaging him to see if he would reveal the money tucked away in secret. He looked poor, but thieves had sharp eyes, and he had no intention of displaying to all the slime of Riften that he carried on himself an entire year's income.

A roguish looking man on the other side of the market was looking on him with a greedy, hungry concentration. This focus so unnerved Jofthor, it took nearly every ounce of his energy to hold his pride and rage and fear inside. All he wanted was to hurl his axe clear across the space between them, and burry the blade deep in the bastards skull. What did he mean? He just kept standing there; standing there and watching him and grinning.

Jofthor couldn't risk it; he couldn't reveal his money to the world. He turned to the beggar and tried to nod politely as he brushed her off; even as she lay near death in the street. He couldn't bear to look on her; and his sorrow was great, his grief great, but he made himself turn to continue on his way.

Yet there was something stopping him; something physical. With her small hands clinging around his broad forearm, Fastred held him firm to his place.

She looked up to him with sad eyes. She never looked more like a child; she never looked more like his daughter.

"We can spare it dad," she said.

Her beautiful, pleading gaze and her goodness always had too much power over him. He didn't want to, but in truth he had not choice. He relented.

He reached into his jacket, and trying not to draw attention, he withdrew ten coins. It was much more than the beggar had asked for, but it would be enough to pay for a full meal; perhaps her first full meal in months. Jofthor hoped she wouldn't spend it on Skooma.

Leia placed her head affectionately on her father's shoulder. She then let her eyes meet his, and let him know she was proud of him.

Yet he couldn't stop thinking of the beggar and how beautiful and young she might have been once; and how much like his own daughter she might have been once.

"And this is the city life you want to run away to?" he said as they turned to finally leave Riften.


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you sure these are the ones, … they don't look like their worth much?"

"Trust me; I saw them in the market earlier. The man there gave a beggar ten septims. If he gave that much away, how much would he keep for himself?"

"How much would he keep for us you mean," the bandit said, grinning as he faced his partner.

"Keep it clean this time," the second bandit said.

The two of them were crouching, hidden in the brush. They were waiting for the father and daughter to cross the next bend in the road, and to leave the line of sight of the city guard.

Both bandits wore armor, and carried swords in their hands with enough skill it felt like no more than extensions of their own arms. Each was a professional highway man, and took no risks, left no witnesses.

They would take the gold, and the valuables, and leave two bodies in the wilderness to be devoured by wolves.

The bandits tensed their legs, and prepared to sprint down on their quarry bellow; vulnerable, helpless, and outmatched.

That was when each felt the soft skin of an open palm land on the small of their backs. Shortly afterwards they felt the horrendous flash of lightning coursing and burning through their nerves and their flesh.

Then they felt the sudden magical surge that pulsed and radiated through their bodies, breaking the molecular connections holding their particles together. It was a most excruciating pain, but it lasted only for a moment.

Then they were dead, dissolved into puddles of smoking ash on the forest floor.

The Justiciar casually walked away, fading back into the skulking shadows.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been a little over two and a half weeks since Fastred went with her father to Riften. Even still the experience continued to fill her daydreams, washing over her mind and making bearable the long, monotonous hours of her days in the field.

Yet something was different than it was before. Unlike before, the hopes for her future now clung to something that felt tangible and real. No longer were her dreams hazy and uncertain, now she knew what she wanted. She wanted shops, and people, and endless distractions.

She wanted the city.

Though in a painful way this made her youth, and her dependence, and her confinement, and her small village life feel all the more horrendous. She was trapped in darkness with a light at the end of the tunnel, but with no way to reach it.

She needed adventure, and she needed romance. She had always needed romance; adventure and romance in equal parts.

She needed a man, a wonderful man, a heroic man, a charming and a dashing man to carry her away from her life and away from this place, and to never let her look back.

She leaned wistfully against the fence post at the edge of the farm. She counted the clouds in the sky. She contrasted the colours in the autumn leaves. She did anything to avoid the crops, and the labour, and the dirt between her fingers.

Then she saw him coming up the road.

For a moment she thought him a mirage of her hopes, but he was real; as real as any man of flesh and blood.

He was handsome, and tall, and broad, and carried himself with a pride like no farmer or labourer she had ever seen. His armour was beaded and spiked and covered in bearskins, and were it not for the confidence with which he walked, she would have thought him a barbarian. But he was no barbarian. What he truly was didn't click in her mind until she saw the village guards saluting him as he approached.

He was a stormcloak; and an officer at that. He was a stormcloak of great respect; a leader of heroes.

He smiled to Fastred as he walked past, but he did not speak to her. This was for the best, as her legs had turned to jelly, and her emotions and her thoughts had become a confusing nonsense. If she had tried to speak, her words would have muddled and bumped against themselves.

Fastred only managed to keep her composure for the time it took for this handsome man to climb the distant steps, and enter Vilemyr Inn.

Then once he was gone, and she could no longer bare her excitement, she ran to her secret place behind the barrow to giggle and hide.

On the way she fell on her face.


	5. Chapter 5

That afternoon Fastred had pleaded with her parents to pay the extra to have dinner at the Inn. Her family was poor, and such extravagance was only for very special occasions, but after much annoyance, they finally relented.

For the rest of the day Fastred had been all smiles and laughing, but she suddenly went silent at the last moment when they entered the Inn. As they had stepped inside she saw the same man from before, and just like before, her knees began to jangle against themselves. Her father didn't notice the sudden change in her disposition, but her mother did, and she smiled.

The stormcloak was sitting in a chair around the central fire, a flagon of mead in his hand, and nearly all the men in the village gathered around him. He was telling war stories, the exploits and the battles of his service with Ulfric. He was embellishing of course, as is Nord custom, but perhaps not by much. He did after all wear the uniform of a Stormcloak commander, who could argue with that. His uniform alone gave weight to his tale; if not the assertion of his words, and the honesty of his eyes.

He said his name was Yrsarald Thrice-Pierced, the highest ranking warrior after Galmar Stone-Fist and Ulfric the true High King himself. Then he started to talk of battles won, and of beautiful women bedded. Then he spoke of battles yet to be won, and beautiful women yet to be bedded.

As he spoke this last point, his eye rose to Fastred, still standing shy by the doorway; and he winked, a half wink and a smile. Only she noticed, only she was focused on him enough to notice.

In that instant the whole crowded room seemed to fade away, and she and him were standing alone, time unmoving save for his sparking gaze, and she felt naked; naked and happy and longed for and enjoyed. Her palms went clammy, her heart beat faster, loud in her chest, and her unspeaking tongue tied itself in Gordian knots. Then she melted, staggering backwards into the wall, thankful it was there to hold her supported.

Yrsarald smiled, but only for a moment, a precious forever remembered moment. His attention soon drifted back to the men gathered around to hear his tales.

Fastred's own father had taken his place among them, and sat with them, and listened to the stormcloaks's every word.

For another two hours all of Ivarstead sat hypnotized by this visitor. There wasn't a plate among them whose food hadn't gotten cold, and the barkeep barely got a moment in which he wasn't racing from the mead racks to the hearth, staggering to keep up with the growing lines of empty mugs.

Fastred starred on, timidly and helplessly as the momentum of the evening shifted away from her. Yrsarald was a man of immense charisma and heroism, and in his presence she felt dwarfed. She had no powers to make herself noticed like she wanted to, and could only sit shyly in the back of the hall.

She should have known such a man would not go unnoticed, but even so, her heart began to ache when the barmaid Lynly began lavishing her charms on him, and playing her pretty lute for him.

Then Lynly bent over, not so accidentally, and Yrsarald gazed entranced down the rift of her exposed cleavage. He then smiled, and flustered apologetically over his words; and Fastred's fragile heart shattered in tiny pieces as he fawned over her.

Shortly afterwards Fastred excused herself, and disappeared into the autumn night to cry; even as her family stayed, and the drinks poured into the early hours of the morning.


	6. Chapter 6

Fastred sat alone in the darkness. The roaring water crashed beside her as it fell from the mountains above.

She hadn't been able to sleep, her mind racing, and so she crawled from her bed and out into the still, silent night.

Lunar moths danced about in the distant wilderness.

Her mind slowly became still, and calmed with the darkness and the chilled air.

It was while she was sitting there, quiet and unmoving, that she noticed his presence lowering to sit beside her. She didn't turn her head to gaze on him. She knew who he was by the shadow of his broad frame, and the aura of his power that seemed to fill the whole space about her.

"You didn't stay,' Yrsarald said as he placed himself between her and the waterfall. The moonlight and the starlight fell on him and lit the shadows on his face, warming his soft eyes.

Strangely, Fastred felt unaffected by him now. She was tired, but also a strong part of her was certain she was dreaming. He seemed less frightening, but just so long as her exhausted mind believed him an apparition.

'I was hoping you would stay. I had wanted to speak with you after everyone else had left," he said. His pride flashed with the endless hero worship of the people of Ivarstead. His words, even despite their kindness, still flashed with the countenance of someone to be worshiped.

Fastred ignored his cutely arrogant tone for what it was, the enflamed ego of a man, and focused on the underlying intention of his words. He was courting her, but what should that mean? How could she know his character; know his intentions?

"You seemed pleased enough to be talking to Lynly," she said.

"You mean she was pleased to talk to me," he responded dismissively. "I've never liked that kind of girl …not really, and not for more than a moment."

"And what kind of girls do you like?"

"Girls like you."

Fastred blushed. It was his sudden boldness that had caught her off guard. She had heard such words from men before, but never so out of the blue, never with so much confident certainty.

"You don't even know me," she retorted, still blushing.

"I will know you."

Fastred raised an eyebrow, and focused on his expressions with a sudden intensity. Yrsarald winked, and made his gaze puppy dog, disarming her scrutiny. Then he bent towards her, and nudged her shoulder playfully with the weight of his.

Fastred laughed, and grinned, but then shortly built up her walls again.

"Why are you in Ivarstead?" she asked him, her eyes gazing wistfully towards the night sky, her voice haunting and sad, as though carrying into another world. "The war is far away from here."

Yrsarald became solemn, his own gaze equally forlorn. "All Skyrim is a battlefield these days. Even little Ivarstead," then he paused a long, silent pause. "These people, all living happily and quietly as they do, aren't safe, can't be safe; not from the Thalmor. The damn elves believe they own all of Tamriel, just because they made the blasted Emperor sign their damn treaty. Now they have free power to come to peaceful little places like this, places where no one would ever harm anyone, and drag away whoever they please. They do this for what; because we worship Talos, because we believe a man can be great, can become a god!'

'The problem is the Thalmor, but the enemy is the damn milk drinking imperials who roll over for them and tell us, us noble Nords who saved the empire in the Great War, that were supposed to give up our gods and… and… and lay down like kidnapped maidens to the will of the Dominion!'

'Ulfric has the right of it, and he will be High King. Every Nord with the mountains and the fjords and the forests and the ice in their veins should be able to see the light of that truth!' Yrsarald said, and then clenched his fist in a tight grip, squeezing tight enough that within it he could see himself crushing the windpipe of an elf.

'I will march with Ulfric when he drives the damn Justiciars out of Skyrim, or I will claim the glories of Sovngarde, but I will never watch my people trodden underfoot for the hubris of elves, or bow to an Empire that says I should!"

Fastred had now been pulled from her stupor, and could now focus only on Yrsarald. It was his words that inspired her, but more than this, it was the intensity of his passion. The light from the moons shone through his eyes as he had spoken, and the cute dimple on his cheek had lifted with each point of emphasis he made. He was adorable. Adorable in the way he spoke for his cause and his nation.

His exuberance had leapt from him and into Fastred, becoming her passion, and her cause.

Fastred leaned towards him, her hands on her thighs, her starry eyes gazing on him, adoring him, losing herself in him; ensnared by his charm.

He noticed this sudden attention from her, and unprovoked, he kissed her.

She didn't resist. Closing her eyes, she melted as his arms locked around her and enveloped her. His powerful muscles held her close, tight against his chest, and in that moment with his strength all around her, she felt suddenly her vulnerability, her frailty, but was comforted by this; comforted by the protection of being cherished by something so strong.

His hand stroked her cheek and along the edge of her hair. His kisses became more tender, parting from her lips in gentle motions, then happily finding them again. Fastred's body became rapidly warmer, her skin flushing red, burning. Her fingers moved of their own accord, finding their way to his arm and shoulder, tensing and clawing into his skin as he kissed her.

Yet then, just as suddenly, she was released from his embrace. Yrsarald pulled himself away, and sat a short distance from her, his lungs breathing heavily and his limbs trembling to maintain control.

"I'm sorry," he said, still shaking from the struggle with his desires, his eyes distant. "You deserve more respect than that."

Then he excused himself, and slowly made his way back to his room in the Inn.

Fastred was left sitting alone in the dark night, her yearning eyes watching after him as he vanished.


End file.
